Wednesday, October 31, 2018

[Old man voice] Back in my day, kids didn't have iPads or Playstations or the iPhone Xs Max to amuse themselves, so sometimes they just sat beside a tree or got under the covers and read educational comic books. Also cool: A comic book cost a quarter or less, compared to $1,100 for the iPhone Xs Max. Can you imagine Marcia Brady asking her dad for an $1,100 phone? I mean, Mike Brady is a guy who wanted to make his kids pay for their own calls from within the house! But I digress...

This is the June-July 1973 issue of DC's short-lived Weird Mystery Tales. On the cover, the kids and their dog have wandered too close to a haunted house, and now the kids have to hide from a skeletal spectre while the dog bravely attempts to fend it off. The educational lessons here are clear: (1) If more adults would live in creaky old mansions, then their kids wouldn't have to seek them out; and (2) always take a dog when you're exploring or breaking into haunted houses. Does an iPad give you that kind of insight?

Here is some educational dialogue from within this issue of Weird Mystery Tales:

Don't touch that alarm button!

Don't be a fool, Harper! You haven't got a chance! That's pure uranium in that container!

If I had one time-travel token, I'd probably use it for May 1980 and get myself to Des Moines, Iowa, and the SE 14th Street Drive-In to watch the double feature of the exquisitely awful Cathy's Curse and personal favorite (but still mostly awful) Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.

It's also the only way to see the drive-in theater. According to Cinema Treasures, it opened on May 14, 1948, and was demolished at an unknown date after the mid-1980s. The site is now a Menards home improvement store, and I hope Cathy is haunting the aisles.

Earlier this year, I stumbled across images1 of this John Carradine Life Mask, which was somewhat inconceivably being offered for sale on eBay — because the terrifying, corpse-like face of this character actor might be just the thing you need to accent your living room or study.

And it could have been yours for just $149.95, plus $21.85 for shipping.

You would have been the envy of your neighborhood!

If you neighbors were grave robbers and morticians.

The eBay listing touted that Carradine was the star of Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Grapes of Wrath. That's all true, but many of us know Carradine best for his late-career horror films such as The Sentinel; Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary; The House of Seven Corpses; Terror in the Wax Museum; Silent Night, Bloody Night; Horror of the Blood Monsters and ...

... I could keep going, but you get the picture.

Sweet dreams.

Footnote1. Let's not think about the life choices that led to me viewing these images on my laptop.

Up next on the vintage postcard parade for Mild Fear 2018 is another Whitney Made card. This one was postmarked on October 30, 1923, in Dayton, Ohio. It features, as you can see, a benevolent-looking witch sitting on a toadstool and playing what I believe to be a mandolin. An owl and a black cat are dancing to whatever tune she's playing, while a smiling, apparently sentient, pumpkin watches. A second black cat, partially hiding behind the witch, appears unsure what to make of this whole situation.

The text on the card states:

HALLOWE'EN GREETING
There was a witch and thus she sang —
To the merry tune of twang, twing, twang,
When witches will with their wizardy wile
Watch well which way you wander the while

When it was mailed 95 years ago, the postcard only had to travel about 70 miles, from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio. It was sent to "Mr. Paul & Walter Wickoff." The cursive message states:

We would be glad to see you at 233 W. 5th St. Dayton, OhioGuess who.

Whatever house might have been there a century ago appears to be long gone. That general location is now home to Sinclair College's "National UAS Training and Certification Center," which focuses on unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technologies. You're probably not interested in more than that, so I won't drone on.

On the heels of the big post earlier this month about Margaret Sutton and her Judy Bolton series, here's the cover of a second volume in the series that I picked up at the York Emporium over the summer. This is #5 — 1933's The Ghost Parade. It involves summer camp, counterfeiters and possibly cursed Native American masks.

The Ghost Parade has a pretty spooky cover for a juvenile-fiction detective tale aimed at girls, and is thus perfectly suited for Mild Fear 2018.

(It reminds me a bit of a 1944's Lost Worlds by Clark Ashton Smith, but it predates that book by more than a decade!)

Related...

Little girl to her father at Target: “Daddy I really wanna see the creepy stuff.”

Dad: “Why do you wanna see THAT stuff?”

Girl: “‘Cause I’m a creepy girl.”

And the Dad just made a face and did not take her to see the Halloween stuff, that Dad sucks, don’t be that Dad, the end.

If Slender Man is looking for a soulmate, Hachishakusama might be a good fit.

Like Slender Man, Hachishakusama is a creepypasta-borne legend, and she's a little older — dating back to an online debut in Japan in the summer of 2008, which is nearly a year before Slender Man burst onto the scene.

Hachishakusama supposedly means Eight Feet Tall, but I don't want to say anything more or spoil any of the spooky tale that surrounds her.

There's a terrific version of the urban legend available on Scary For Kids. But, if you can, I highly recommend that you listen to the version that's read by Blurry Photos podcast host David Flora. He's a Chicago-based actor, and his skills are on full display with his telling of the ghost story.

It wouldn't be Mild Fear 2018 without some clowns. These merry monsters are from The Wonder Book of Clowns, which was published in 1955 by Wonder Books Inc. It was written by Oscar Weigle (possibly this guy) and illustrated by James Schucker. Clowns probably locked them in a room until this bit of propaganda was finished.

The hardcover book cost 29 cents, which is the equivalent of about $2.70 today, and it boasts a "Washable Cover," which seems kind of odd. It's not like you can wash away the Pure Fear that travels from your hands to the book. The clowns will still sense you. They will still find you.

Here are some interior illustrations, with some short commentary.

The inside front cover. Pretty much your last chance to turn back.

Look at the face of the guy in the lower right. Definitely a demon.

Pro tip: Don't provide swords to the scary clowns.

Nobody's looking at the yellow parasol, Weigle.
This is the last thing you see before The End, I suspect.

Last sentence: At least, if you are out one dusky evening and suddenly hear the faint clattering of a horse's hooves you may just spot a Ceffyl Dwr before it disappears into the sea and under the waves...

Random sentence from middle #1: The ghosts are a legion, floating from almost every circumstance and century: pirates, witches, unmarried mothers, lovesick maidens, white, grey, black, green and even a blue lady, monks and nuns, together with a few more phenomena which cannot even be identified.

Random sentence from middle #2: Most peculiar of all is a phantom cat which is quite wild and roams all over the woods playing havoc.

Reviews: There are no ratings or reviews for this booklet on Amazon or Goodreads.

Revised edition:The Wolfenhowle Press is selling a new edition of this book for £7.99. It describes it as: "First published over forty years ago, this new and totally updated edition has been completely rewritten and expanded. It included not only some of the more famous tales, but also some that are virtually unknown nowadays, first appearing in Victorian newspapers."

Notes: This slim volume and another one from the series, Welsh Witchcraft (maybe I'll do that one for Mild Fear 2019), were on Mom's bookshelf, in the spooky section, for as long as I can remember. It's only 32 pages, so I should go ahead and read it straight through so I can put it up on Goodreads with some proper documentation. According to the back cover, other volumes in the James Pike's Viewing Wales Series from the 1970s include Ancient Industries and Handicrafts, Best Beaches, Birds, Legends & Folklore, Northern Footpaths, Railways, Smugglers and much more. Most of the volumes are fairly difficult to find these days.

To whet your appetite, Hix's great piece includes this quote from Pam Kueber of the blog Retro Renovation:

"This couch is a hat tip to Early American or Colonial Revival décor, which was massively popular through most of the 20th century — married to an indestructible, essentially plastic Space Age fabric, which our grandparents would have found appealing because our grandparents didn’t tend to redecorate constantly. They had one sofa. They bought their furniture on a layaway, and by the time they found enough money for a sofa, they wanted it to last forever. So the good news was that fabric was going to last forever — but the bad news was that fabric was going to last forever."

Please go read or bookmark the full article when you have a chance. It's worth it.

Today's next vintage Halloween postcard is also a bit of a mystery, because I can't determine the publisher. On the front, as you can see if you squint, there's a very small capital C with a dot inside. On the divided back, the only useful text states "Series 339 A." If anyone knows the publisher for this card, please let me know.

It's an amusing image, with a boy being chased by a dog that looks like it's straight out of Our Gang while he (the boy) carries a huge jack-o'-lantern that's been impaled on a stick. In the distance, a cat is getting out of Dodge.

The name J. Marvin Long (or Lang) is written on the back in cursive. But the postcard was never mailed.

It wouldn't be another year of Mild Fear without some vintage Halloween postcards. This one is an undated, never mailed Whitney Made card out of Worcester, Massachusetts. Whitney was much more well-known for making Valentine's Day cards starting in the late 19th century. But the company did expand into Halloween cards, and this one is a interesting combination of cute and creepy, with the Pumpkinhead Lurkers at the window.

The card becomes even creepier if you view it while listening to John Carpenter's iconic Halloween theme, so why not just find a empty room and do that right now, to get your festive day off to the right start.

There will be more vintage postcards throughout the day, perhaps when you least expect it. In the meantime, though, here's a list of some vintage Halloween cards from Papergreats past...

This small advertisement (2⅛ inches wide) appears toward the back of the February 1955 issue of Mystic Magazine, which was edited by Raymond A. Palmer and eventually became Search magazine.

Promoting The Book of Forbidden Knowledge, the advertisement promises a "strange, unusual book revealing the ancient, secret formula of Black Magic and Forbidden Knowledge," which would certainly be a 110% non-starter for the demon-fearing folks discussed in the previous post.

Can you get this book today? Yep. It ranges from 100% free (but full of garble) on archive.org to $500 for a fragile copy from 1932 on eBay. The happy medium (pun intended) — if you're seeking information about dreaming of your future husband or doing untoward things with crows, badgers or moles1 — would be to purchase a print-on-demand copy of the public-domain volume on Amazon for $5.90.

One Amazon review, however, warns that it's (gasp!) not a reliable source, except for its information on omens. Other reviewers call it silly or absurd, thus risking having themselves turned into newts. Another pegs it as "more for teens on sleep-overs or Halloween parties," while yet another amusingly complains: "Instructions unclear ... caught my horn in a demonic vortex. Please send help."

"These were the dark texts of ancient times. If you love the old horror films of Universal, Vincent Price, Hammer, and others and have wondered about the ancient texts the villains use, well it is ones like these. These are the real life old magical grimoires of the past. Shady priests, witches, alchemists, and the lot used these books to summon ancient forces. Their power may work today if you believe and take it serious. It is interesting to note the influence of Judaism and Christianity in these works magnificently translated anew by Tarl Warwick."

Footnote1. The Book of Forbidden Knowledge states "If you carry the head of a crow upon your breast, all must love you who have dealings with you." Please, however, only use a live crow for this. With regard to crow beheadings in the name of black magic, we say: "Nevermore."

Over the summer, on a forum I participate in that focuses on book-collecting and homeschooling, an oddball question popped up out of nowhere. Suddenly, instead of focusing on Lois Lenski or The Book House for Children, things took a paranormal turn.

It started with this post:

"I hope this is okay to post. I recently bought some very old books at an auction. Afterward, I found out there may have been some bad mojo (?) in the house they came out of. Now I am hesitant to bring them into my house. I brought a couple of them in before I heard the stories, but since then, I have left the rest in my garage. Anyone dealt with this sort of thing before? I am not really superstitious but I do believe in forces beyond our understanding (not really ghosts, but I don't have much reason to believe in them). I guess I want reassurance that I won't be bringing bad stuff into my home with these books??"

Later, the original poster added this:

"The auction people just found some weird stuff in the basement, got weird feelings/vibes from the place and one worker spent the night in the house and wouldn't return. Wouldn't even accept payment for what he had already helped do. A grown man. ... There are no books pertaining to anything Satanic. They range from books about big oil, to Bibles to Delphinian Courses to Eugene Field. The books themselves are nothing really to note. I just got creeped out about something that I truly have no proof of other than what I heard."

The situation became more interesting as members of the forum responded with their own thoughts and personal stories. I'm posting a sampling of them here because (1) it's Halloween, and (2) It's an interesting sure-to-be-Lost Corner of the Internet and it's worth preserving as a snapshot of our American society and state of mind in 2018. A sampling of the replies...

"You can certainly pray over them. And remember that He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world."

"I'd suggest praying over them, but recognize that some holds are just not worth the fight if you can live without the items in question. As someone who was once involved with witchcraft and is now born again, I say that stuff is real, and not something to be trifled with. If it were me, I would ditch them."

"Demons exist. I would either find someone to pray, or ditch the books."

"If you're unsure pray and ask. You'll get confirmation one way or the other. For any that you strongly want to keep but are worried about you could try smudging. And/or prayer. And/or essential oils."

"If none are rare or valuable to you I'd drop them off at a thrift shop personally. I don't believe every story I hear, but I do believe there are demons and I wouldn't willingly bring anything in my home to attract them. Sure you can get rid of them, but it just isn't worth the energy if it can be avoided."

"Oh yes this is a fun thing which we have dealt with many times. It's definitely possible for inanimate objects to hold memories or impressions of the lives of those around them — that's part of what makes my grandmother's books so valuable to me. I can close my eyes and 'hear' her turning the pages. But it also means I can 'hear' the nastiness. Generally I ask for God to send helpers, often He sends warrior angels, to purify and cleanse the object. It's easier than cleansing it myself. And they like to help. That's their job. If I were, however, to cleanse it myself, I would start with either Redmond's ancient salt, Himalayan ancient salt, or in a pinch, Celtic sea salt. I'd put the books in question in a box with the salt (salt chucks are easiest for this) and put them in the garage or basement, somewhere with an easier connection to the earth, and set my intent for the evil/nastiness/junk to drain off into the earth and elements, and be sent to the best places — coral likes depression vibes, for example."

"If by any chance you are Catholic or Orthodox, talk to your priest about it, and he would probably be willing to pray over them and bless them with Holy Water."

"I don't really think there is anything 'in' the books as long as they aren't about witchcraft themselves. However — and this is the important part — these books will always have that association with witchcraft for you and therefore will cause you to think about it and I think that's where the danger for you will be. If it causes you to think those thoughts, then the devil has succeeded in influencing you through this and you should get rid of them so they aren't a problem. (If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out ... of course that's not literal, but I think that principle applies in this situation). We have no idea where most of our used books come from so the idea that a book is possessed itself, seems a little farfetched especially if you pray for protection and God's Spirit in your home. However, like I said, if it causes thoughts of fear, I would immediately remove them so it doesn't cause a stumbling block for you."

"I've had experience with this before. What I did was turned on hymns. On a CD player on repeat for probably a week. The evil feelings were gone after that. Of course we prayed too."

"There was a stack of books that I bought from an online seller, one who specialized in Occult books. I too was wary of any 'hitchhikers' for lack of a better word. So I brought them to my husband at church, who blessed them with holy water and an impromptu 'Blessing of Landmark Books' — that they would be used with joy and thanksgiving, that they would serve to foster curiosity and wonder for the world we have been given and the unique individuals who have shaped it, etc. I had no issues bringing them into our home and sharing them with others after that, but it mattered to me to have their intention clarified and a new beginning made for them."

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Paul W. Copeland's The Land and People of Libya, part of the Portraits of Nations series, received a fair bit of circulation in the Wrightsville Elementary School1 library during the early 1970s, especially considering that most 8-year-olds had no sense of the region in which Libya is located. The J.B. Lippincott Company book, which was published in 1967, entered circulation at Wrightsville in November 1968.

The card pocket and circulation card, shown below in all their ephemeral glory, indicate that the book was first checked out by Connie W. of Room 206. The due date was December 10, 1968. The book then received occasional attention in the first half of the 1970s, with readers including J. Ierley, Rodney F., Lee DeRemer, Lori Kurtz, Rebecca Wallick and George Newcomer. Those of us in a certain generation can certainly picture their school librarians using hand stamps to place the due date on the circulation cards and pockets. Nowadays it's all bar codes and scanners.

The April 1967 Kirkus review of The Land and People of Libya was not very positive, so that might have dampened enthusiasm for this volume. Or perhaps there just wasn't much interest in Libya. Here's the Kirkus review:

"Welcome to Libya — and be prepared for a disorganized tour of her history and geography. In desert-dry style the author explores the various foreign invasions and occupations which formed the Libyan heritage, then rambles along caravan and slave routes to glance at each important town, its history and significance. A stack of useful information (except about current foreign policy) presented with a poverty of descriptive power."

At least Copeland tried, though. According to his biography on the dust jacket flap: "In the spring of 1965 he and Mrs. Copeland researched in Libya, during the 'coldest spring in fifty years. We nearly froze to death much of the time.'"

If you want to gain a little insight about life in Libya in the 1960s, right before Gaddafi took over in 1969, you can check out this 2011 Time article, with photos, by Phil Bicker.

Footnote1. Wrightsville Elementary, in the Eastern York School District along the Susquehanna River, is today lauded for being the "second school in the state and ninth in the nation to gain Leadership in Energy and Environmental design registration." Efforts that earned that accolade include " passive solar strategies with building orientation along an east-west corridor that provides natural light throughout classrooms, reduction in electricity use, roofing materials that reduce heat transferrence during hot days, exterior lighting design that reduces light pollution on site, water consumption reduction of 34 percent, highly efficient heating and air-conditioning, carbon dioxide sensors, high performance triple-glazed windows, an annual energy consumption cost reduction of over 30 percent, recycled building materials, air quality monitoring, and an overall efficient spacial design."

Monday, October 29, 2018

Remember how, over the weekend, I was expressing my concern — certainly an incredibly inconsequential concern in light of the world today — that I was in danger of reblogging some piece of ephemera that's sitting around the Papergreat HQ?

Well, it turns out that it already happened. In playing this huge and unwieldy game of Concentration, I finally discovered what I feared had already happened: I reblogged something.

So, Dear Reader, you can no longer trust that you're getting something new when you tune in for your daily dose of ephemera. I can no longer say, with certainty, that you haven't seen the piece that I'm presenting. So just relax and enjoy the ride ... and the occasional unintended rerun.

Today's mystery photo is 2½ inches wide, and it features a woman in a white dress standing next to a car that I can't identify. There is no information on the back, so it's a true mystery photo. If the woman looks like one of your long-lost relatives, please drop me a note in the comments.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

What am I doing with a copy of Chaffers' Handbook to Hall Marks on Gold & Silver Plate? Well, it was on deep discount at a bookstore closing, and it has some cool stuff inside. No other reasons needed!

The full title is the even more unwieldy Chaffers' Handbook to Hall Marks on Gold & Silver Plate of Great Britain and Ireland. It was first published in 1897 and this is the revised ninth edition from 1966. As you can see from the cover, William Chaffers' late 19th century reference book has been "entirely re-written, corrected and revised" by Cyril G. Bunt.1 So it should probably be Chaffers' and Bunt's Entirely New Spiffy Handbook to Hall Marks on Gold & Silver Plate of Great Britain and Ireland. ("Spiffy" optional, I guess.)

The interesting things inside this book are (1) a bookplate for Norman P. Pinto on the inside front cover and (2) a letter from when this book was gifted to Pinto in 1966. Here they are:

The letter was from Professor A.J. Murphy at The College of Aeronautics in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, England.2 The college, which was established in 1946, is now called Cranfield University, and it's testing drones for the European Union. Murphy's letter to Pinto is dated "8·x11·66" or "8·y11·66" depending how you read that letter in front of 11. I know that British dates are typically day/month/year, so this is from November 8, 1966. But I don't know what the letter means.

The letter states:

Dear Mr. Pinto,
I thought you might find this little book useful in your quest for old English silver.
With all good wishes.
Yours sincerely
A.J. Murphy

Mr. Norman P. Pinto
Beryllium Corporation
Reading Pa. U.S.A.

So, we know that Pinto was in Pennsylvania at this point and was part of Beryllium Corporation. Going back to much earlier in Pinto's life, I found this news item in the September 10, 1938, edition of The Boston Globe:

A biographical note in the June 1966 edition of the journal Nuclear Applications has this to say about Pinto:

"Norman P. Pinto, Vice President of The Beryllium Corporation, graduated from MIT and has been active in the beryllium field since 1943. He conducted research on the fundamentals of beryllium powder metallurgy and later managed a major beryllium refinery and production plant. Currently, he is responsible for research and development of beryllium and beryllium alloys. He has contributed significantly to the literature on beryllium metallurgy."

Indeed, I found Pinto's name attached to such articles as "The warm pressing of beryllium powder," "The control of atmospheric beryllium in a metallurgical laboratory," and "High-purity beryllium powder components."

It appears that Pinto died in Massachusetts in 1993, at age 73.

Footnotes1. Bunt was also the author of 1950's The Horn of Ulf, which is about ... the Horn of Ulf.
2. Just north of Cranfield is a hamlet named Bourne End, which I'm pretty sure is the name of a Matt Damon movie.

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About the Author

I'm Chris Otto, a Pennsylvania resident and journalist whose hobbies and interests include old books, ephemera, history, folklore, alpacas, photography and much more. Never stop reading, learning and asking questions! I consider this blog to be a spiritual descendant of Microsoft Encarta and a companion to Wikipedia. Every piece of paper tells a story.
Reach me at chrisottopa (at) gmail.com.

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